


Wings and Wrath

by Nanagrb



Series: Klaroline AU Week 2017 [5]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Balkan Mythology, F/M, Klaroline, Klaroline AU Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 11:15:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12456536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nanagrb/pseuds/Nanagrb
Summary: Klaus is the only one amongst his siblings to still be cursed with only his beastly forms. He needs his Bride, but after centuries upon centuries of fruitless searches, he's convinced he won't ever meet her.His duty as The Punisher is all he has left.





	Wings and Wrath

**Author's Note:**

> This particular submission for Klaroline AU Week 2017 on Tumblr (nanaswhispers), was the perfect occasion to delve into a fascinating and undeservingly lesser known mythology. All this comes from the Balkans. Although I have bent it to adapt it to my ideas. Therefore, some terms are foreign. A small "dictionary" is available at the end!
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!

Tranquility and stormy peacefulness stretched before him without ends.

Klaus was once again roaming endlessly the skies above the vast territories that had belonged to him and his kin since the beginnings of time and civilization. Fated, as it seems, to be the only one amongst his brethren to never fully complete his forms. Only two out of three were at his reach: full beast or half beast. He was the unfortunate one that wouldn't ever feel skin on his body. The only one to be eternally stuck in wings, and scales, and fire.

However much unadapted and unsatisfied with his nature Finn was, he had been the first, and only one for some centuries, to reach the only salvation they, as  _Zmajs,_  could achieve : stealing his Bride. In hindsight, maybe it was the deep hatred he felt since his early days towards his beastly nature that led him to search for Sage incessantly. To save him from the deep injustice he had been dealt with when given a powerful and scary form, _poor ickle Finn_.

Or maybe the Fates, vicious old witches as they are, although Klaus really didn't have much faith in that idea, gave him one of their few and far between bouts of clemency… or most probably, his whining tired them out.

Ironically enough, Kol who hated even the idea of the Bride, afraid of ceasing his free roaming and copulations with all kinds of creatures on all known (and unknown) lands, was the next one to find her.  _Bonnie Bennett. Qetsiyah's descendant._

Ah, sweet, sweet times, those were. Yelling, fights, thrown objects, ominous chants and spontaneous flames. Pure chaos. Rather fitting, actually, considering his brother. Eventually, though, they learned how to make concessions and to love that chaos between them. It took a few years, but Klaus wished it had taken even more, now the sweet sounds of drawn blood and screaming, were, unfortunately for his ears, caused by entirely different reasons.

Klaus saw Elijah and Katerina also flying in the gray sky, albeit quite far from his position. It reminded him of those troubled times when his brother, the one that always took care of all of them, the only one that tried to save him from Mikael's “loving” treatment, took for Bride a woman that not two moons before came too close in succeeding at her attempt at killing Klaus, after paralyzing him in his sleep with the help of her little coven, in order to extract the blood from his veins, sell his hide and use the marrow from his bones in a curse.

Of all the women, even boring ordinary witches his brother could have chosen  _(Klaus knew that “choice” was an exaggeration, but he had never been quite rational with anger held him)_  he decided on one that wished harm on his kin and kind. _Travelers and their obsession with ridding the world of Zmajs._

It goes without saying that after 150 years filled with silence and cold treatment, their relationship was only a fragment of the bond they had before.

Rebekah had been the only one of his siblings that understood the deep anguish of centuries upon centuries of a void inside you, that everlastingly grew and ate perpetually at your soul. He was happy, that his sister found Lorenzo two years ago. Truly. However much they squabbled and irritated each other, he only ever wished her joy, love and happiness.

Nonetheless, Klaus couldn't help it, he felt envy and sorrow at each smile Enzo drew on her face. Jealousy when he saw her glow happily, or caressing softly her rounded stomach growing month by month. Anger had been there of course, he wouldn't be himself if that wasn't his default feeling. Doubt, betrayal, however ill-placed, had griped his heart.

But, he resigned himself to the idea that if one of them had to be unbonded in order for the rest of the family to be happy, Klaus was quietly satisfied with that role.

Yet it was still quite torturous to be in the entourage of so many mated pairs while his very cells and blood desperately called for his own Bride. Maybe it was the very reason as to why he found himself more frequently in the airs without even making the conscious decision to do so.

Today the frustration had reached a level unmet before. And even with all his strength he had felt almost frail all day.

Klaus enjoyed being the most powerful being that was. He relished in the sensation of the air caressing his scales and spikes. Fed from the fear and submission the humans had whenever they saw him roaming the sky. He adored feasting on the unworthy, feeling the blood of the vile ones gushing down his throat, feeding the fire that would rid the earth of the scum spoiling it.

He was a  _Zmaj_. The instruments of Justice herself, the puny humans called them. And Niklaus was proud of that. Proud of the terror he provoked.

Yet, he also felt unsatisfied, incomplete. Although he was  _Zmaj_  (his mother's blood made sure of that by running through his veins powerfully) he was also the son of  _Crnobog_ , the God and King of Hells. The bastard son. The thorn in the Mikeal's side. The “son” he couldn't rid himself of for fear of repercussions. The mistake that couldn't be killed.

While his siblings felt the calling of executing Justice for the sole purpose of managing the balance, he, was _The Punisher_. And though Justice would be imposed, he could not care less for the “balance”, no matter how many sermons Elijah preached to him (and Kol, one would almost question his parentage too, had he not been the portrait of his father).

Niklaus “Mikaelson” both passed the sentences and swung the sword.

Klaus had hoped, after finding out the truth of his heritage, during the first few centuries of his life, when youth still led foolish thoughts, that maybe over time his godly blood would exempt him of the curse every  _Zmaj_  suffered when they passed their adolescence: never feeling whole until they found their Bride. (Lorenzo, proud blood-drinking  _Strigoi_  that he was, still campaigned to have a more manly version of the term. Klaus hadn't laughed that hard for years when he first heard.)

They were cursed to bears wings and fangs only until the other half of them deigned to appear.

Well, Klaus called it a curse. The dumber amongst his brethren idolized it into a deserved Gift, a sort of compensation for the duty they lived for, that they earned. They thought the same Gods that created them and gave them Life also had to pay them for accomplishing the purpose for which they were made. They defiled the beauty that it had been into a vile version of treasure that had to be given and not fought for. Such idiocy could only be met with violence.

His dual nature gave him more responsibilities and duties too: the humans and various beings roaming their territories were not his only “clients”, he had to punish  _Zmajs_  as well. Those that harmed their own. Those that abused the sacredness of the bond. Those that took advantage of the weaker Brides. Those that didn't represent Justice anymore, but Discord.

And, while he hadn't enjoyed how it ostracized him even more, he understood why he was needed.

With the years and experience behind him, he had come to relish putting them in their place, breaking their proud and taunting smirks by tearing their limbs away from them.

He had never felt more satisfaction than when Mikael, the “father” he knew most, and the one that beat him and blackmailed him with the life of his mother, killed his wife's Bride.

Her true Bride, a witch named Ayana, who was also Bonnie's ancestor, that she had met right after passing the Transition, when their bodies finished their adolescence and changed into their true nature's form.

The conventions of the time and his mother's very much controlling (and threatening) family, one of the 12 royal clans, hadn't allowed her to live her life fully with the Bride the Fates chose for her. Her marriage with Mikael, an ambitious warrior coming from commoners, unusually large for his caste, was arranged a month after.

No one knew what happened to Mikael's Bride, the human disappeared right after the Claiming, the only fact that was a certain truth was that she was alive somewhere, probably sequestered for the rest of her mate's life. They were Linked after all, once they met, their life went and ended together, no matter what their life expectancy usually was.

The pain of his mother's death caused by Ayana's assassination only pushed forth even more the ire and bloodlust Klaus had for Mikael.

He had summoned every  _Zmaj_ for his public execution. And every last one of them, including children, saw the consequences of his actions. Each witnessed his wings being torn off his body, the bites on his torso that leaked the rich brownish red blood that kept him alive for almost two millenniums, and how Klaus finished him off by severing his head from the rest of him.

Klaus was abruptly stopped in his fond remembrance of the squelching and cracking sounds Mikael's neck had made when it was broken in two, by both Elijah's growl and his own instinct telling him he was needed.

A sinner needed to be punished. Klaus' beastly face split in a smile capable of scaring the most vicious murderer.

His wings stretched wider, his previously slow and relaxing cadence transformed into a powerfully fast beating of wings that propelled him through the airs like a lightning bolt.

Soon he passed Elijah, with Katerina on his back, and he followed the direction his power as the Punisher led him to.

As he approached the location of his sinner he saw a peculiar situation unravel: it seems someone already took a hold of him.

The picture got clearer and clearer, and Klaus cursed a little inside for the complications that arose. It was a cluster of someones, with one of them holding in the air by his neck the tall burly man he had to put to Justice.

A cluster of  _Ieles_ . 

Beautiful forest fairies that while usually playful and airy, when crossed, became ruthless, vindictive and extremely feared creatures. And this man certainly seemed to have gravely angered one of them judging by the scorched earth and frenzied winds around the pair.

Klaus landed behind the angry Iela, prepared to claim his prey back, even if he had to piss such dangerous beings off.

But when his eyes took in the majestic blonde beauty that suddenly turned around angry at the interruption, his whole body irrupted in both pain and joy.

The wings on his back grew back into his backbone.

The scales retreated and let skin meet fresh air for the first time since his Transition.

The ever-present fire lodged in his throat seemed easier to swallow back.

Klaus found his Bride. And while he knew that it wouldn't be easy, especially considering the aggressive stance his breathtakingly gorgeous mate took as she watched him, clad in a white flowing dress hinting sinfully at the length of her luscious legs he couldn't wait to devour.

He had never felt more complete nor happy.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Zmaj : (or Zmeu) Dragon
> 
> Crnobog : litt. Black God, the God of Darkness and Hells
> 
> Iela: plural Iele, Forest Fairies.
> 
> Strigoi : Vampire


End file.
